It's Will Hunting vs. Jim Halpert in this politically and environmentally-charged dramedy

No matter where you stand on the issue of natural gas drilling, otherwise referred to as fracking, it looks like the upcoming indie drama Promised Land looks like it will build a case for both sides. Written by and starring Matt Damon (Contagion, Good Will Hunting) and John Krasinski (NBC's The Office), Promised Land follows corporate salesman Steve Butler (Damon) who is hired to sell the small farm community of McKinley on drilling for natural gas, which becomes a problem when a local farmer (Krasinski) tries to rally the town against it. The first trailer for the movie, it could be argued, may wear its intentions on its sleeves, but doesn't posit Damon as the villain or Krasinski as the hero, an element of character development that was key to the actor-writers. In January, Krasinski told MTV that the movie emulated the kind of movies made by Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country For Old Men, Fargo).

I don’t think anyone can do the Coen Brothers kind of thing [like they do], but it’s in that world of there’s a little bit of both. We’re just throwing everything into these characters. My theory is that if you care about the characters then you care about the movie, so that’s where we’re going with it.

Damon, of course, has already worked with the Coen brothers on True Grit, and the movie co-stars Coen regular (and Joel's wife) Frances McDormand, but you can see for yourself whether their influence makes a mark on the trailer below.

Initially intended to be Damon's directorial debut, scheduling conflicts kept him from the director's chair, which instead went to Damon's Good Will Hunting director Gus Van Sant. "Matt unfortunately couldn’t direct because timing and he only has 60,000 projects going that he has to shoot tomorrow, so he couldn’t do it and Gus signed on like eight or ten hours later which was insane," explained Krasinski. "It’s a really fun movie and having him at the helm will really make it perfect I think."